


The Rule of Thirds

by eymberfyire (gracefulfallen)



Series: Loose Threads [9]
Category: Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Complex relationships, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Infidelity, Ending Relationship, Established Relationship, F/F, Forum: Goldenlake, Goldenlake SMACKDOWN, Longing, relationships are hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5156717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefulfallen/pseuds/eymberfyire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In that surprised moment, Kel realizes that if anyone understood being seen as a symbol, it was quiet, compassionate Lalasa.  Or, Kel comes home from war and realizes that her former maid might be the only person that truly understands her experience as the Commander.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN 2013. 
> 
> Relationships are complicated and messy, ya'll. Sometimes no one does anything wrong and it still doesn't work, and sometimes you realize that you don't love someone the way you thought you did. I wrote this one after a bad breakup so it's sad and messy but ultimately hopeful.

“It’s just hard, Lalasa...” and while this isn’t the first time they’ve seen each other since she returned from the North it is the first time she has actually talked.  At least about things of any consequence.

Kel knows the look of worry the other woman wears, knows the way Lalasa’s eyes are trailing over Kel’s gaunt face, the cheek bones sharper than when she left. Taking in the fine lines and bagged eyes that make her look older than her 22 years.   
  
Lalasa’s shop was silent when Kel entered, and the older woman was lighting a fire to ward the chill of the winter months away. Now they stand before the hearth as Lalasa fits Kel for clothes that aren’t military issued, passing stories back and forth. Filling the nuances of the years that letters hadn’t reached.  
  
“What’s hard, Lady Kel?” and though she has a loop of string around Kel’s bicep as she measures, Lalasa’s eyes are filled with concern.   
  
Kel pauses, eyes searching the ether for her answer as she tries to put words to it. “I wasn’t just Kel, when I was there. I was the Commander. It’s...” and she pauses fingers coming up to pinch the bone above her eye as she furrows her brow in frustration.  
  
“Lonely.” finishes Lalasa. Kel drops her hand and looks up, but Lalasa isn’t looking at her - she’s gazing out the window towards the rest of Corus. In that surprised moment, Kel realizes that if anyone understood being seen as a symbol it was quiet, compassionate Lalasa. Former maid turned merchant. Hero to the lower class.   
  
Kel nods in agreement. “Lonely.”  
  
Outside, the sounds are muffled by the fall of fresh snow, and they listen to the odd echo as stray travelers pass by, footfalls distorted and strange. Kel isn’t sure what to say, whether she should break the silence.  
  
Lalasa slips the knotted cord around Kel’s waist, hands grazing the protruding hip bones in dismay. She looks up and freezes, her brown eyes inscrutable as they meet Kel’s own.  
  
It has been so long since Kel has had someone as an equal.  
  
“I just...” she pauses, tongue thick with confusion and stuck to the roof of her mouth, colliding with her teeth. “ I...” and the words are stumbling over the rush of heat that sweeps over her face as Lalasa takes a step closer to her. She can smell her hair. Cinnamon and cotton.  
  
They are frozen like that for an instant, inches apart and a chasm between them. The space is cramped. It's infinite. Things are warring inside Kel’s head, like honor, desire, duty, but after all the death and the fear and responsibility it just feels good to be unguarded for a moment.  
  
Slowly, agonizingly, Lalasa reaches a hand up to tuck a strand of Kel’s hair behind her ear. Her fingers are incredibly delicate, precise. The tips graze Kel’s ear and her breath leaves her sharply in one exhalation, eyes closing, hand clenching the chair next to her.   
  
She has no idea what she will do, or say, seems frozen in place, when the silence is shattered by the bells from a nearby temple. It’s as if she has been freed, and then she is bolting, running from the shop, leaving behind her cloak and an urgent, distraught voice that calls her name down the snow-lined streets.


	2. Chapter 2

“I made dinner...”   
  
Tian’s voice is hesitant. She stands on the far side of the common room in their shared apartments in the Lower City, and wonders for a brief, exhausted moment when things had become this tentative between them. A passing thought, only - she knows this answer. Tries not to think of knights, and letters, and those returning from war.  
  
Lalasa turns from the window where she has been gazing out into the square, and she smiles a brief, tight smile that echoes Tian’s tension and strain. “Thank you, love.” There is a pause. Neither of them seeks to cross the space, then “I’m sorry I didn’t help. I was just...”  
  
“Thinking.” Tian replies, and the chorus of their voices causes them both to smile for a moment. It is a brief return to a less confusing time, and both women look away when it passes, towards the floor or the fire. Something safer.  
  
But the growing quiet, and the distance of these past few weeks has grown near unbearable, and she can’t let it go tonight, at least without another try. “You look tired.” A wordless nod is her answer. There is something valiant in her attempt though, and so she tries again. “Was work so taxing?”  
  
Lalasa runs a hand through recently cropped hair, and replies without looking up.  
  
“We had a fresh wave come in off the Scanran front” and suddenly Tian wishes she hadn’t asked, but Lalasa continues, unaware of her thoughts “all needing new clothes for themselves...”. That silence. That damed cloying silence. “Ke.. the Lady Knight... came by briefly last night.” She looks up anxiously, rushing to continue, “She needed an outfit. For her ball.”  
  
“Well...” and there is not much to say to that, so Tian says the only thing she can think of, “...It is good to have you home for dinner tonight.”   
  
It happens to be the truth.  
  
And then Lalasa crosses the room quickly, strides sure and precise. Tian’s stomach drops for a dizzying moment, and it is almost as if they are back to the beginning, bursting through the door, lips and tongue meeting, pushing each other to the bed, or floor, or against a wall, all passion and impatience. But Lalasa passes by her, steps taking her into the kitchen, and Tian feels the bitter sensation of hope disappointed as it trickles through her chest and burns her throat.  
  
She follows her into the kitchen and pauses as Lalasa reaches for their usual plates. Something grips her, and she says quietly, “Use the Harrisons.”   
  
Lalasa turns back, a surprised question bubbling at her lips, but some look on Tian’s face must keep it at bay. It is the way most questions and conversations have been lately - locked deeply inside the women’s throats. Clawing for the surface. Savagely restrained. Mutely, she passes a plate.  
  
The patterns on this set are beautiful - usually reserved for birthdays or parties - and for a moment Tian is transported back to that summer when they decided they would share quarters. A warm night, full of promise and the scent of summer, the two girls laughing and bantering as they shopped along high street - an extravagance that only foolish young love could excuse.  
  
Lalasa turns to pass a cup to Tian, the brilliant colors obscenely beautiful. She grasps for it, feels it slip as Lalasa releases it a moment too early. It plummets.  
  
Time seems to freeze in that instance, clarify, as the obvious nature of what is happening intersects with what was and what will be, and there is no cry of dismay, no futile attempt to grab the cup or stop its decent - just a light, breathy, sigh that escapes into the deafening silence before the cup’s impact on the tiled floor of their kitchen. And in that sigh, in that moment, a thousand things flicker through her mind, memories replaying in their fickle, half-true way; a shy girl hiding from the cruel gossips, her grateful smile as Tian had taken up her cause - the trepidation, the first time she’d kissed her, and Lalasa’s smile the night they’d first become lovers. Lalasa, laughing and silly from wine at midwinter, Lalasa staring wide eyed at the building that would become her first shop. Lalasa. Lalsaa, Lalasa, Lalasa...  
  
The impact is sudden, cruel and abrupt, and Lalasa says quietly, “Oh, drat.”  
  
She kneels to pick up the pieces. “Perhaps it can be mended...” but Tian is kneeling in front of her, taking her hands in her own.  
  
“Darling girl.” Lalasa meets her eyes. “Don’t.”   
  
And if Tian’s smile is tremulous and tearful, it is also full of love, and regret, and understanding. She raises a trembling hand to cup the younger woman’s cheek one last time, wiping the tears that have started to fall with her thumb. Then, Tian lets her go.


	3. Chapter 3

It is past midsummer in the last heady, hot days before fall and Kel tentatively crosses the Kingsbridge in the height of afternoon, sweat beading on her forehead as she trudges its length. It is a long walk - long enough to reconsider, and turn back, and consider again. Reverse course. Turn. Back and forth. The urchins must think her mad, walking her crazed path before the entrance of Queen’s Keep, but there are few fool enough to be out in this weather, and the ones that are doze in the shade.

She stands before the entrance, pausing for a moment, then enters at last into the blessedly cool shade of tall and commanding cyprus trees. She sighs softly, tension in her shoulders loosening.

Then, out of the quiet - “I wondered if you would come.” A small, curved form lounges on a patch of grass, eyes closed, content as a cat in a sunbeam. She opens her eyes and smiles a sleepy, mischevous smile that had played across Kel’s mind all spring. Lalasa stretches, lean arms and delicate fingers extending and contracting. Stands. And Kel finds herself holding her breath for a moment.

“It’s been too long.” The statement is blunt, but not reproachful, and softened by another smile. Kel ducks her head, suddenly shy, and nods. Truthfully it has been too long - far too long, Midwinter has given way to spring, and spring to midsummer. It will soon fade into fall - three quarters of a year eaten away by time

Kel is not a coward - she has faced down bullies, and treason and death - but she feels like one, pinned in the gaze of this tiny, vibrant woman. At last Lalasa glances away, a look on her face that Kel can’t quite read, and walks down a dirt path away from the entrance to the Keep.

Kel follows her around a bend, noting the silence and the still - enjoying this break from the frenetic energy of the palace. They stop before an ancient stone bench, timeless and mossed in front of a large pond that is as still as glass, reflecting the clouds and the blue of the sky above. She wonders if Lalasa knew the calming effect the setting would have on her. Suspects she does. Ponders this for a moment, then ignores the confusion, taking the serenity of the setting into her heart.

They sit, the quiet between them amicable enough, for a while, but Lalasa’s patience has never been as practiced as Kel’s.

“I had hoped to see you at the shop.” Her eyes are intense, but Kel's face is serene as she gazes at the pond, its still water reflecting a cloud back to her. A heron perches nearby, great gray wings folded up close to his chest.

Kel says nothing, because there is nothing to say, at least that she knows how to express, and she clenches her breeches between big hands for a moment, before letting them go. Shrugs wordlessly.

“Truth told, I suppose I haven’t been much company.” and Kel turns, because she can sense the gloom in Lalasa’s voice. “Tian and I...” and her voice fades.

And suddenly, Kel isn’t sure what she feels or what to say, but she says, “I’m sorry.”, and truthfully she is. She can tell that Lalasa’s grief is still very present and real. And as confused and conflicted as she is, she still hurts for her friend. Regrets that she wasn’t there for her sooner.

“So am I.” and the older woman looks away, up towards the crown of the trees.

Kel considers her for a moment, then looks back at the pond, and the heron, and his solitary vigil. “What happened?”

The heron cocks his head this way and that. For a moment, Kel thinks Lalasa will not reply.

“She,” and there was a pause as they watched the bird take to wing overhead, great wings flapping magnificently in the heat-shimmering air, “didn’t believe my heart was hers.”

A pause. Brief.

“Ah.” Kel’s voice is quiet. The heron returns, and the stillness of the pond is broken by his landing. Ripples mar the glassy surface. She watches the bird. “And was it?”

Tiny waves slosh over the shore while the heron floats atop it all, unperturbed.

Silence stretches. Then at last - “No.” A beat. “At least, not lately.”

There is a splash in the pond, and the shadow of the heron passing overhead as startled hazel eyes meet hopeful brown.

Kel isn't sure what this means - but perhaps it is a beginning.


End file.
